Winter Surprise

My hometown was Delhi, California; right there on that three acre piece of land were both my family’s house, and my grandparent's house. The thing about Delhi, and the surrounding are, was that it never snowed, and I mean NEVER. The winters were warm and the summers were sweltering. This story is about the unexpected thing that happened one warm winter day upon the arrival of my grandparents.

My grandparents would always call to tell me when they would be back home from their travels; this time I remember waiting for their call, because this call was different. Alison, my sister, came running to me with the phone saying that it was Papa, my grandpa. Papa told me how much he loved me and that he hadn’t had a very good time on the trip because he missed me. Likewise my grandma told me she loved me but also that she was bringing a present, and that it was something I had never seen before.

The day I saw their van pulling up the drive I wasn’t even thinking about the present. I was just happy that my grandparents were finally home, I was soon reminded about the gift. So my grandma opened up her big brown van, brought out a HUGE red cooler and said, "Your wondering what your present is, aren't you?" She was right. I thought ‘a cooler, what could that have in it that I’ve never seen before?’. I soon found out.

She opened up the top and before I knew it she had a pile of the purest white snow in her hand. She started shaping it and told me to run. I took off in a flash. Before I could get five yards away she pinned me right in the back with a snowball. After that the fight was on! My brother and sister came out and we had a full blown snowball fight, the sun melting them as they flew through the air.

The week had gone by like so many times before, like a ritual between my grandparents and me. Every time they were getting ready to come back home they would call and tell me what fun they had. I would always cheerfully listen, excited that they were coming home. That’s all I ever needed from them, just them calling made me giddy. But they wanted to do something special for me, something I didn’t expect came out of their love for me. Now I know that surprising new experiences often come in the most ordinary packages.